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Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

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471–480 of 604 posts

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ford doesn't have any good ideas for the future, they are too busy with the here and now according to who? your average HN reader who basically hates cars? yeah, sure. the guy who hates cars is bearish on ford, shocking. what about all the people buying raptors and gt350s and fgts and fists and fosts, hand over fist? do you even know what i'm talking about? do these insanely popular cars even register on your radar…

I just bought an Acura ILX this year and I really like it (despite the reviews that it is just a luxury Civic), and I never even considered buying a Tesla. People misunderstand post car like post PC: it doesn't mean the market is going away, but merely that it is no longer growing . Therefore, WYSIWIG on earnings, because they aren't going to change dramatically. Ya, Ford might have record earnings that are slightly…

> would never consider buying an American brand. I found them unreliable in the pas

Ford Focus is insanely reliable. I have a 2002 with a bazillion miles on it and it's still running like new.

To be fair, Japanese cars are generally great as well, especially Hondas.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#472
post #369

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> The "mobility" market will be about the size of the taxi, bus, and train market. - A personal, individual vehicle which comes to pick you up where you are and take you to exactly where you want to go is a much MUCH higher value proposition than public transit. - Add self-driving to the mix, and the cost of that service will plummet. - When the car providing that service can drive itself, then there is little to no…

The funny thing, some of this already exists these days. It is called ZipCar, Car2Go, or DriveNow. All of them suffer from the very same problem: service. It does not matter if a car is selfdriving or not. To be recognized as available by someone means a utilization of about 30% by the providing company. But a utilization of about 30% does not drive down costs. You still of costs for producing and servicing the vehic…

zipcar and it's ilk have the same problems as bike-share programs: people don't use the service in such a way that the vehicles get to where the demand will be. And if you finish work at the end of the day and all the cars are gone, you aren't going to trust it again.

the bike shares solve this by driving trucks around, collecting bikes from areas where they aren't going to be needed and moving them to areas where demand is about to spike. it's hard to load up a truck full of cars to meet demand in the business district at 5pm, but it's very easy to send over all the spare capacity in your autonomous vehicle fleet.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ford doesn't have any good ideas for the future, they are too busy with the here and now according to who? your average HN reader who basically hates cars? yeah, sure. the guy who hates cars is bearish on ford, shocking. what about all the people buying raptors and gt350s and fgts and fists and fosts, hand over fist? do you even know what i'm talking about? do these insanely popular cars even register on your radar…

The kind of people who buy raptors and gt350s are a tiny fraction of the market compared to the people who just want to get to work. Tesla isn't interested in car enthusiasts, they want to be the default answer to the question "How do I get from point A to point B for $1?"

Tesla isn't interested in enthusiasts? The only people buying them are enthusiasts. The pragmatic folks are still in wait-and-see mode.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems as good a place as any to add the familiar lament: Why does no one build new commuter rail in this country? (This assumes that you're also from the US, for rhetorical convenience.)

I think it comes down to cost. Its only effective in very dense areas. For example, right now I'm on an established commuter rail line going from downtown to a suburb. I'm paying $12 round trip to travel 60 miles total. It's just barely cheaper than driving (not including parking expenses). At this point in time, I think it's wise to avoid laying costly new tracks with the dawn of driverless cars on the horizon.

I think there are physical reasons why driverless cars will never be as good as trains: they're rubber-on-asphalt instead of steel-on-steel, and you need a lot more engines, space, and transportation of dead weight per unit of people moved -- and they'll probably still need parking, too. As near as I can tell, driverless cars are horseless-carriage thinking... but trains have no element of novelty to them.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#475
post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people buying and selling shares think that ford will probably shrink and tesla will continue to grow at pace for years, eating market share from Ford (and every other hydrocarbon heavy manufacturer).

Or they're counting on other people thinking the same thing and running off w/ their money at just the right time before the ship sinks.

Either way, profit. For those willing to accept risk, TSLA has been / is a great investment.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#476

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really know about the gigafactory, but it seems logic that a % of it is dedicated to R&D and growth. Plus, this battery tech doesn't create itself, if I remember reading correctly Tesla is making some advancements in here as well.

I think the error in this thinking is in assuming that the market leader will be the source of the next step change in innovation. This is covered very well in the book "The Innovator's Dilemma". Bottom line, this is seldom the case. If the inflection point in battery technology comes from an outfit Tesla does not control they could be in trouble. All other car manufacturers will simply go off and buy these new bette…

On the other hand, I'd guess there's a "small" window of a couple of years for a real breakthrough+production outside of Tesla to affect them. Seeing the history of batteries and incremental improvements for the last 20? years, it'd be pretty rare for it to happen now.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#477
post #94

Of the major automakers, Toyota probably has the furthest behind ICE platforms. The 5.7L V8 and the 4.6L v6 are 10 years old, and very fuel inefficient compared to the the engines from ford or GM. I think that Toyota really has the most to fear in this case, since they haven't had any success bringing out more efficient ICE/Drivetrains to match the competition, and haven't really managed to scale the hybrid efficienc…

In the truck/SUV/CUV segment, the engines are dated- sure. But that segment barely exists in other markets, at least compared to small cars. Particularly in Europe and Asia. Regardless, I don't think it's a tech issue, but rather an image issue. Trying to sell hybrid trucks to Americans is like trying to feed boiled spinach to kids.

Ford has been successful with the Ecoboost, though. And Ram has the ecodiesel. Both viable options. Though the segment is small outside the US, the Article states that Ford alone sells 40K trucks every 3 weeks.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#478
post #431
post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I want to install an app from a carmaker on my phone, complete with privacy-invading spyware, when I could just use the keyfob to do it?

At work I'm parked down the street from the car so the key fob wouldn't reach. But that's beside the point; you can't even do it from the key fob today on a new Audi.

I can do it on a 15 year old chevy impala. I have a hunch that fernstart is verboten in europa because it is a waste of fuel (and emissions.) They have webasto heaters and parked ventilation instead. Aren't all these cars stop/start now?

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#479

This is a perfect slice of Americana here. I can't find a number through Google but the number of Ford Hourly/Salaried employees has to be over 125,000. As a guess. Tesla has 30,000 hourly/salary employees. Despite being valued 'less' Ford has a huge economic impact for many peoples lives. This may decline, over time, but don't be surprised if Ford/GM/Chrysler combine forces for a huge battery factory of their own. T…

Rather than build own factories. It would be smarter, and someone will do it, to buy batteries and self driving tech from someone else. Concentrate on their strengths of car design, brand, dealer networks. Rather than enter new and risky tech someone else has 10 year lead on you. Someone else like Tesla.

Re: Tesla Passes Ford by Market Value

#480

Often discussed outside HN, but almost never heard here: Many are investing in his relationship with President Trump. At least two major investment banks [0][1][2] advised their clients of it and many other observers and investors think so too. [3][4] Again, outside HN it's not an uncommon idea; just search a news aggregator for "musk trump". EDIT: It's a very serious problem if we lose free market competition, and i…

@dang, @mods: I don't care about this one comment, and obviously HN is your forum and you can score things however you want. However, please let us know your policies so that commenters can willingly follow them and so that they don't waste their valuable time contributing things that are unwanted and will be underutilized (and in fairness those contributions are most of HN's value). Please be open about it (whatever…

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